154 Active to passive peg 302-6

Put the transitive verbs into the passive voice. Do not mention the agent unless it seems necessary.

1 The milkman brings the milk to my door but the postman leaves the letters in the hall.

2 In future, perhaps, they won't bring letters to the houses, and we shall have to collect them from the Post Office.

3 People steal things from supermarkets every day; someone stole twenty bottles of whisky from this one last week.

4 Normally men sweep this street every day, but nobody swept it last week.

5 The postman clears this box three time a day. He last cleared it at 2.30.

6 Someone turned on a light in the hall and opened the door.

7 Women clean this office in the evening after the staff have left; they clean the upstairs offices between seven and eight in the morning.

8 We never saw him in the dining-room. A maid took all his meals up to him.

9 Someone left this purse in a classroom yesterday; the cleaner found it.

10 We build well over 1,000 new houses a year. Last year we built 1,500.

11 We serve hot meals till 10.30, and guests can order coffee and sandwiches up to 11.30.

12 Passengers leave all sorts of things in buses. The conductors collect them and send them to the Lost Property Office.

13 An ambulance took the sick man to hospital. (Mention ambulance.)

14 We kill and injure people on the roads every day. Can't we do something about this?

15 Dogs guard the warehouse. The other day a thief tried to get in and a dog saw him and chased him. (A thief who . . .)

16 The watchman called the police. The police arrested the man.

17 Tom had only a slight injury and they helped him off the field; but Jack was seriously injured and they carried him off on a stretcher. (Tom, who had. . ., but Jack, who was. . .)

18 You can't wash this dress; you must dry-clean it.

19 They are demolishing the entire block.

20 He recommends fitting new tyres. (Use should; see Exercise 157.)

21 He suggested allowing council tenants to buy their houses.

22 Men with slide rules used to do these calculations; now a computer does them.

23 The court tried the man, found him guilty and sent him to prison.

24 The hall porter polishes the knockers of all the flats every day. ~ Well, he hasn't polished mine for a week.

25 They are repairing my piano at the moment.

26 Passengers shouldn't throw away their tickets as inspectors may check these during

the journey.

27 They invited Jack but they didn't invite Tom.

28 The guests ate all the sandwiches and drank all the beer. They left nothing.

29 Has someone posted my parcel?

30 Why did no one inform me of the change of plan?

31 Tom Smith wrote the book and Brown and Co. published it.

32 We shall have to tow the car to the garage.

33 I'm afraid we have sold all our copies but we have ordered more.

34 We will prosecute trespassers.

35 Someone stole my car and abandoned it fifteen miles away. He had removed the radio but done no other damage.

36 You must keep dogs on leads in the gardens.